Cutifani to assess Anglo’s assets

MARK Cutifani, who replaced Cynthia Carroll as Anglo American CEO yesterday, will assess the group’s assets and commodities within the next four months.

MARK Cutifani, who replaced Cynthia Carroll as Anglo American CEO yesterday, will assess the group’s assets and commodities within the next four months to ensure it is extracting the most value from its businesses.

“I’ll look at the portfolio, the commodities we’re in,” Mr Cutifani said in an interview on the company’s website.

“Are they the right commodities for the future?”

Mr Cutifani was named as CEO three months ago.

Ms Carroll quit in October after Anglo American lost about $14bn in value during her tenure and suffered cost blowouts and delays at an $8.8bn iron-ore project in Brazil. The group also mines coal, copper, precious metals and diamonds.

“The assets: are they competitive?” asked Mr Cutifani.

“Are they as good as they could be? Should we be doing things differently to realise value?”

He also plans to assess the balance sheet after London-based Anglo swung to a loss last year amid asset write-downs, strikes in SA and lower commodity prices.

While there was “always some uncertainty” in commodities markets, global growth would bolster demand, he said.

“In terms of water, energy, commodities, the world is short,” Mr Cutifani said.

“If the world is going to continue to grow at better than 3%, we don’t have enough of any of those products to actually support that growth.”

Mr Cutifani was previously CEO of AngloGold Ashanti, a position he held since 2007. Before then he was chief operating officer at Vale, where he was responsible for its global nickel business. He has more than 35 years’ experience in the mining industry. With Bloomberg